Frequently Asked Questions
'Will this game ever become 'Pay To Win'?' Our commitment to this game is that we will work as hard as possible in making sure that if any paid features are introduced, they will not be features that effect the balance of the game. Any paid features will be purely for aesthetics or convenience. Currently, the only paid feature is the Skin Store, which will allow players to buy cosmetic skins citys' buildings, walls, and lumber camps. 'I have multiple people playing the game on the same IP. Is that a problem?' The admins constantly keep an eye for suspicious activity on people sharing the same IP. It's okay if there are multiple people playing on the same house/computer but a single person playing multiple accounts is not allowed. If we find that the same person is playing multiple accounts, we'll contact you. 'How do I find the invitation code for my friends to join with their cities near me?' The invitation or referral code is found by accessing your profile in game. You can access your profile in game by clicking on your city and then your name, or from the menu in the top left. The code is in the top left of your profile just below your name. A friend that uses your invitation code will have their first city created somewhere within 250 tiles of your first city. 'The forest says the map is full!' That just means that one forest is full, not the entire map. Keep looking for others. 'The forest says it will take XXX hours to gather wood!' This is how long the forest has until it's completely cut down. You will constantly get lumber for this period of time. Once it runs out, you'll have to find another forest. 'How do I assign more laborers to a Lumbering Camp?' You cannot add laborers to an existing Lumbering Camp. You must cancel the current wood gathering activity and build a new camp. Don't worry about losing your spot, as you can immediately send them back and have a level 0 camp hold your spot until they show up. 'I can't find my Lumbering Camp!' Go to the city overview (the red-roofed building icon at the top of the screen) and click on your Lumbering Camp in the window. 'What do roads do?' Most buildings require being connected by a road. Roads give you space to build new buildings, so build your roads wisely. The amount of green squares shown when you click "Build Road" are the amount of spaces for buildings you can build on. The more green squares the better. It's highly recommended that you plan out your road structure as soon as possible. Two of the best methods for this are Rhythmatic's city planner spreadsheetor andrwmorph's city planner app. These tools are not automated, but instead help you to plan things out ahead of time, preventing regrets later on when building space becomes more important. Also note that your city walls expand from 9x9 to 11x11 when your Town Center reaches level 8. 'Do walls do anything?' The walls are purely for aesthetic purposes; they don’t keep anything out or in. So, don’t worry if there is a hole in your wall, it means nothing. 'How do I center the view on my city?' Click the little globe next to your city name in the top left of the screen. 'Does the game carry on when I log out?' Yes, the game is always live. 'When my Newbie Protection is up, am I going to get hit by everyone?' The community is pretty respectful of new players for the most part, big players probably aren't going to dog pile you without reason. That being said, build an army to protect yourself (plus you want one for looting others!), and build defenses. A Basement will help protect some of your resources from being stolen, and cannot be attacked. Towers help divert people from attacking you somewhat as well. If you do get attacked, sometimes you can simply message the attacking player, inform them that you are active and then politely ask them to stop. As long as you act maturely, many veteran players will back off. 'Can I find out whether someone else is under Newbie Protection?' Yep! Open up the world map (it's the paper icon above the minimap) and click "Difficulty" a few times. This cycles through the various map modes. One of them is Newbie Protection. 'Hey, there's an army in my city, but I'm still under Newbie Protection!' Armies pass through cities when going to their destination. If you're going to be attacked, you get a message. Otherwise, you're fine! 'Do I have to do anything for my units to defend my city?' No, as long as your troops are at home and they aren't "hidden" they will defend you. It does not matter which building(s) gets attacked, all of your units will defend, and the attacked building(s) will too. To hide your troops, go to the Shield tab at the top, click on "Manage", and from there you can decide what troops are active and which are hidden. Hiding your troops increases the upkeep cost per hour of your troops by 25%. 'Can I remove/move buildings?' A level 4 Town Center or a level 5 Foundry can remove buildings. Movement of buildings in Tribal Hero is not possible. The only way to reposition a structure is to remove it and rebuild it in the desired place. 'How do I get more laborers?' Laborers are accrued automatically every half hour, specifically at the top and bottom of the hour; however, the more labor you have, the less you get (early game you get 1 labor per 9 minutes, but the time to generate new labor increases as you get more laborers). To find out how quickly you are generating new labor, go to the "City Overview" tab at the top of the screen (looks like a building) and hover over the labor for the tool tip. To increase the rate of laborers you recieve you can build Tribal Gatherings, Tribal Fairs, Tribal Carnivals, or Tribal Festivals (all of which are made by a Trading Post). 'How many fighters do I need to attack a Barbarian Tribe?' For a level 1 camp, a safe strategy would be about 20-25 Fighters, with even more if you want to be extra safe. Some players have riskier strategies that involve as few units as 12, but this is not recommended for beginners. For a level 2 camp, about 30-40. Beyond that, you shouldn't be attacking them without Barrack units. Alternatively, once Newbie Protection wears off of the players nearby, you can try to find an inactive player's city to raid, instead. Sometimes these don't even have defending units. 'What do Vineyards do?' Vineyards turn laborers, lumber, and a small amount of crops into a large amount of crops (not wine). Laborers used to make them are gone forever. A Vineyard does not produce crops over time, but rather provides a large, one-time burst of crops. Vineyards take 4 hours to grow and then remain harvestable for an additional 6 hours thereafter. If they are not harvested within that 6 hour period, the vineyard withers and the resources (and laborers!) invested in the Vineyard are lost forever. Use of Vineyards can provide a very valuable boost in crop early game, but this can have negative effects later on when laborers start becoming necessary to sustain your city's economy; it is not uncommon for players to "labor starve" themselves by overusing vineyards. Once your Farms get to level 5 or 10, the laborer requirement of vineyards decreases to 1 or 0, respectively. Because of this, many experienced players recommend saving Vineyards for later in the game. 'Vineyard leaves an empty plot of land, now what?' Click on the withered vineyard and click remove. After a few minutes, it'll disappear. 'Why can I only have one Farm and one Lumbermill?' You are able to build a second Farm when your Town Center reaches level 4. You can only have one Lumbermill, though. The fourth grass plot will always remain empty. 'At what point can you create a new city?' To get a new city (second city) you need to have 130 Influence Points, and 50 Ox Wagons (made by level 4 Trading Post). Find an open place for your city (looks like a blue-grey stone disc laying on the ground), click it, and create your new city! The requirements for a new city go up each time you make a new one. A new city takes 12 hours to create. When you're making cities past the second one, all of the Ox Wagons must be created in the same city. 'Can you send out more than one army at a time?' Yes, you can send out quite a few armies at once, if you so desire (both defense armies and offense armies apply). 'Can you destroy someone's Town Center?' No, you can only bring it down to level 1. All other structures can be destroyed completely, except Basements which are unattackable. 'What do Towers do?' Towers protect nearby buildings. If someone attacks your town and your Tower is within range (click the Tower to see its range highlighted in green) it will help you by attacking their army. Towers attack one stack of units per round, with an additional stack of splash damage for every 200 upkeep in the attacking army. You do not get attacked by Towers for "passing through them" - you must be actively attacking a building within the Tower's range. 'What do the colors of cities on the map mean?' The colors are relative to your city's Influence Points. White and green indicate less IP than your city, yellow indicates approximately the same IP, and orange or red indicate greater IP than you have in your city. Blue is your city. 'What are the benefits of being in a tribe?' There are a lot of different benefits to being in a tribe. You get people to watch your back, help you with strategies, a super secret tribe chat and a message board. You also get a feature called “Assignments”, where you can coordinate attacks to come at the same time as your tribe mates. 'How do I get into a tribe?' You can either ask to be invited to a tribe (by messaging the leaders of the tribe) or sometimes you’ll get an invitation without asking. Other than that, once your Town Center is level 5 you can create your own. If you want to find a tribe you can try the Looking for Tribe system that Rhythmatic created. Register here or view players who are looking for a tribe here . 'What are Strongholds?' Strongholds are neutral structures spawned around the map that tribes can capture and control in order to gain Victory Points. They are pregenerated at server creation, but remain hidden until enough player cities are built in their area. Strongholds are one major form of mid- to late-game tribe versus tribe PvP. 'How do I get gold?' There are multiple ways to obtain gold. 1) Defeating barbarian camps, with higher levels yielding more gold and more chance to get gold. 2) Building a Market (built from a Trading Post, which itself is built from a level 5 Town Center) and selling resources. 3) Building a level 4 or above Market will give you gold per hour. 4) Building a level 4 Workshop will allow you to research “Weapons Export”, which also gives you gold per hour. 5) The final way to obtain gold is to steal it from others via attacks. 'How do I get iron?' Build a Refinery (built from level 6 Foundry), steal it from others or buy it with a level 8 Market (iron is required to upgrade Markets past level 5). It is also possible to rarely get Iron from Barbarian Camps. 'What resources do I get back when I cancel building something?' If you cancel something you decided to build within 60 seconds then you get 100% of resources back. If you cancel beyond this point you only get 50% back so be careful! The game will give you a confirmation message if this is the case. The only change to this is when building units which queue up to build one at a time. As an example: If you are building 18 Fighters and then decide you want some labour back when there are only 9 Fighters left to be built, if you cancel you will get back 8 units worth of resources, in this case the important one is 8 labourers. If any of those resources (labourers) were free due to technologies researched, for example the 5 for 4 technology, then those resources will not be returned to you. 'Do you have anything else I can read?' Sure do! First off, you'll want to see the game database, which tells you about the buildings and their upgrades, as well as the units and the technologies (although you won't need these for a while). When you've done that, explore the rest of the wiki, which repeats some info from the game guide but also adds some very important info, as well as linking to a couple very good guides. A good next step is the City Building Tutorial. Finally, read Kaiku's newbie guide. It is an extremely in-depth guide on one very skilled player's opinions on build order and strategy. It's a long read, but it will get you far if you absorb the concepts. The purpose of this document is to compile a list of Frequently Asked Questions posed when people are new to the game. If you find the answer to a question you think should be included in this FAQ, please feel free to edit this document to add it. Most other questions can either be answered by asking people on the in game chat Help desk channel, or by visiting the game database , or the subreddit. Category:Test